


Those Left in Hope

by CurryJolokia



Category: Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger
Genre: Crew AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 14:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurryJolokia/pseuds/CurryJolokia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It can't end this way. If they can't believe in it, he'll hold their hope for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Left in Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KingOfSwords](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingOfSwords/gifts), [hakaseheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakaseheart/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Those Left Behind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/492254) by [hakaseheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakaseheart/pseuds/hakaseheart). 



The crew prepared for battle. Marvelous in particular strapped on more weapons than usual; aside from the Gokai sabre and pistol, Gai counted three more flintlock pistols and a variety of small throwing blades.

Gai had never seen Luka looking so grim before - not even when Zangyack had used memories of Fia and Cain against her. Ahim's pretty face was stoic, mouth set in a hard line. Joe had the chilled look in his eyes that meant he had even less care for his own safety than usual. He always got that way after he'd been crying.

Gai felt helpless in the midst of them all. He wasn't quite so new as he had once been, but he wondered if they still thought of him separately, as though it was Marvelous' crew-plus-Gai. They had a shared history that he hadn't been around for, true, but crew was crew no matter what. Even - especially - when it was made of people who'd come together from so far apart.

They were a family now. And the only thing they knew was that Don's Mobirates signal had gone dead. 

There had been an explosion, and a scream. They'd all looked over, the battle had frozen still -- it towered two stories high, a gasoline fireball rising from a cluster of the oil drums Don so often punted out from the corners of the wasted fields that became their battlefields. There was always a faint viciousness in the way their engineer pitched the drums at their enemies, as though the idea of a grenade larger than the life forms it was meant to explode was exciting, somehow. His reckless abandon and unfailing dumb-lucky aim made it seem harmless, even clever. Makeshift weapons!

There must have been something else in one of the tanks, this time. Something must have gone wrong, something beyond Don's calculations.

But all they'd seen was the explosion. They hadn't found a body.

And his Mobirates signal was dead, and even the emergency call wasn't going through.

But they hadn't found his body.

Scrubbing tears from his eyes, Gai gritted his teeth and squared his shoulders, barrelling off the Galleon at Marvelous' side. A phalanx of Goumin met them on the ground, braced and ready for blood. The team henshined as they charged, screaming their battle cries. Goumin blood flowed like water.

The others had all seen and lived through horrible things. They'd lost people, felt the bitterness of hope drying up on their tongues. They didn't want that pain again.

That was okay, Gai decided. It looked impossible. His mother would have told him not to waste his time in dreams.

But the best thing that ever happened to him, had happened on the doorstep of his own death. Gai had seen the edge and it was the brightest, showiest thing of all.

The crew couldn't hope; Gai would hold their hope and his own. He could hope hard enough for the whole crew. Because his mother had been wrong - his dreams of Sentai teams had, impossibly, come true. That meant that this one, even more impossible than the last, just HAD to come true, too.

Because they hadn't found a body.

They hadn't found Don's body, so he wasn't dead. Gai would make that hope into truth.

_"Gooookai. . .SHOOTING STAR!"_

**Author's Note:**

> Spontaneous fic round robin tag game kitaa? ? This was supposed to be a drabble in answer to hakaseheart's Those Left Behind.
> 
> Then my iPod gave me Bulletproof Heart (MCR) and I was pretty much screwed.
> 
> Who wants to answer next? <3


End file.
